Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of rioters have been charged, convicted and sentenced for joining the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. Unlike their cases, Samuel Lazar’s appears to have been resolved in secret — kept under seal with no explanation, even after his release from prison.Lazar, 37, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, was arrested in July 2021 on charges that he came to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, dressed in tactical gear and protective goggles, and used chemical spray on officers who were desperately trying to beat back the angry Donald Trump supporters.There is no public record of a conviction or...

A major power outage in Central America cut electricity to some 15 million residents on Wednesday, with the worst impact felt in Honduras and Nicaragua. The two most-affected countries saw power for nearly all residents “practically go down to zero volts,” siad EOR communications head Evelyn Flores. The grid operator said the outage began at 1 p.m. (1900 GMT) but the cause and specific origin of the massive loss of power still being determined. Energy use fell from 8,300 megawatts to just 2,400 megawatts across the region with the exception of Panama and Costa Rica, which were mostly unaffected, EOR...

If you’ve ever thought of visiting the crocodile-shaped island of Cuba, or run into someone recently returned from sultry nights in the country’s salsa halls, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard the phrase “See it before it changes.” And I don’t mean because of Hurricane Melissa. The idea is that the centrally planned communist state, one of the last on Earth, will soon morph into America and a balmy Brigadoon full of people unencumbered by money, modern cars or Alexa will evaporate. I think most people, if they knew what Cubans have endured, wouldn’t use that phrase, which is...

Representatives from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) met Friday with Venezuela’s contested President Nicolás Maduro. Participants in the meeting, which took place in Venezuela’s capital of Caracas, included the chairperson of the DSA’s National Political Committee, members of the International Committee, and members of the organization’s Political Formation, Foreign Policy and Bilateral Relations sections, local news outlet Telesur reported. Venezuela has experienced widespread protests against the Maduro regime and nearly five million Venezuelans have been forced to flee the country under his rule due to food and medical shortages. A fact-finding mission appointed by the United Nations Human Rights...

[Please note this is from the Post Millennial in Canada. They have to use the 'proper pronouns' or could be charged with a 'hate crime' - Red Badger] Leftist activists are trying to free a fellow trans comrade in northern Florida who was indicted on charges including first-degree murder, arson and burglary. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Antifa-linked far-left militants are fundraising for the release and legal aid of a Florida far-left trans activist accused of murdering a man, setting fire to his home and burglarizing his property. Matthew Daniel Temael, who uses the alias and trans name “Dandelion,” was arrested in September over...

As more information trickles out on the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moise, there are details that point to the issue of narcotics trafficking in South Florida and issues surrounding how the cartels use Haiti as a shipping and transportation transfer hub. That old investigative phrase of "follow the money," and who benefits from the death of Moise, will eventually reveal who did this and why. However, there are significant details available today that answer some of these questions while creating additional ones. It is reasonable to believe the United States government knows exactly what happened in Haiti, who is...

Shocking video shows mob capturing Haiti President Jovenel Moïse’s ‘assassins’ Dramatic video captured the moment a Haitian mob captured two alleged Colombian assassins, beat them and dragged them bloodied through the streets of Port-au-Prince after President Jovenel Moïse was gunned down. A video shared on social media shows the crowd pulling two men, one of whom was shirtless and bound with a rope, in the neighborhood of Petion-Ville, near the late president’s private residence. “Advance, advance!” someone is heard yelling on the video as the crowd pushes the two men, who were discovered hiding in some bushes. Some people grabbed...

Some of the former Colombian servicemen arrested after last week’s assassination of Haiti’s president previously received U.S. military training, according to the Pentagon, raising fresh questions about the United States’ ties to Jovenel Moïse’s death. “A review of our training databases indicates that a small number of the Colombian individuals detained as part of this investigation had participated in past U.S. military training and education programs, while serving as active members of the Colombian Military Forces,” Lt. Col. Ken Hoffman, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement to The Washington Post. The Pentagon’s review is ongoing, Hoffman said. He did...

For the first time ever, significant light is being shed on one of the most horrendous human rights atrocities of the second half of the 20th century. In 1988, more than 30,000 political prisoners were senselessly massacred by Iranian officials. More than 30 years later, one of the people who participated in the massacre, Hamid Noury, is on trial in Sweden. The Noury trial should spark more media and public scrutiny about the 1988 massacre, and ultimately trigger a long overdue international investigation. Hamid Noury has been incarcerated in Sweden since November 2019 when he visited the country for personal...

On Thursday, October 28, supporters of the People's Mujahidin ‎Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the National Council of ‎Resistance of Iran (NCRI) held a large conference in Washington ‎DC. The conference, titled, "2021 Free Iran Summit: Holding ‎Ebrahim Raisi Accountable for Crimes Against Humanity, ‎Genocide, Regional Meddling, and Nuclear Defiance," ‎ This conference, however, was significantly different from similar ‎meetings that were previously held in the United States. In this ‎ever-important gathering, in addition to distinguished American ‎personalities such as Senator Joe Lieberman, US Vice President ‎candidate (2000), Senator Torricelli, U.S. Senator (1997-2003), ‎Honorable Judge Michael Mukasey, 81st U.S. Attorney...

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said a week-long spree of violence and pillaging that has shocked South Africa had been "planned" and vowed to hunt down those responsible, as the death toll from the unrest reached 212. "It is quite clear that all these incidents of unrest and looting were instigated -- there were people who planned it and coordinated it," Ramaphosa said in a visit to KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, the flarepoint for post-apartheid South Africa's worst crisis... Shopping malls and warehouses have been ransacked in KZN and Johannesburg, stoking fears of shortages and inflicting a devastating blow to the...

The leak near dawn Friday occurred about 150 yards (meters) from a drilling platform. The company said it had brought the gas leak under control about five hours later. But the accident gave rise to the strange sight of roiling balls of flame boiling up from below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

PEMEX You might say Mexican state-owned petroleum company Pemex had a bad day Thursday. As Reuters reported, there were fires at three different facilities owned by the company — two in Mexico and one in Texas. And while there are still some unknowns, in an update, the wire service gives what details are known:(Reuters) – A Thursday night fire at Pemex’s 312,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Deer Park, Texas refinery broke out in a crude distillation unit (CDU), said people familiar with plant operations.The sources did not know which of two Deer Park CDUs were hit by fire. The plant has a...

It's been a rough summer for generals in Cuba. They are dropping like flies, as we see in this report:Over just nine days this month, Cuban state media announced the deaths of five generals, sparking a wave of discussion and rampant speculation among analysts and exiles.The senior military leaders all appear to have died between July 17 and 26. Some were serving and others retired, but all had lauded military careers. The youngest was 58. Most were in their 70s or 80s. It is not clear what caused the deaths, and there is no indication they were related.The deaths of...

Peru’s new president Pedro Castillo, 51, deserves credit for vowing to focus his government on improving the lives of the country’s poverty-stricken indigenous population. But his first steps in office raise fears that he will scare away investors, generate capital flight and — after a short-lived populist fiesta — create more poverty. Castillo, a leftist former elementary school teacher who had never before held public office, assumed the presidency on July 28 after winning the runoff elections with a razor-thin 0.3 percent of the vote. He controls only 37 seats in the 130-member Congress. Some hoped that Castillo’s minority in...

A big problem arrived in Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’s email inbox on the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2021. It was a legal notice from an attorney representing Amanda Timpson, a former member of Willis’s executive staff who had been blowing the whistle on the district attorney’s office for allegedly trying to mishandle federal grant funds. Willis, the eight-page letter stated, had violated a slew of whistleblower protection laws when she reassigned Timpson to serve as a glorified file clerk following a brief meeting in July 2021 in which the district attorney refused to hear Timpson’s allegations. Timpson believed...

Heavily armed criminal groups have moved in the past month to residential and commercial areas from slums in the city’s hills, and violence has exploded over the past 24 hours with firefights breaking out in at least five populous neighborhoods. President Nicolás Maduro’s government has not mentioned any casualties as a result of the clashes. Human rights activists in the area have said at least four civilians were killed on Wednesday and half a dozen have been wounded. The gangs want to control one of the main corridors linking the capital with the west of the country, said a human...

A Lewis and Clark statue featuring Sacagawea (also spelled Sacajawea), a famous Native American woman, was taken down in Charlottesville, Virginia, making it the third statue to be taken down in the city. The statue is of two White men – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark – and Sacagawea, who was depicted tracking, according to historians. Those against the statue have said Sacagawea appears to be cowering, according to The Daily Progress newspaper. “It was a very offensive statue, and not only did it delineate me as a Native American, it delineated our women and their role in society,” said...

Shocking bodycam footage revealed the moment Texas police officers shot a man in the head with pepper bullets as he sat on the grass outside of a cemetery. Guadalupe County officers were seen in the footage on June 27, 2021, approaching now 44-year-old Ronald Smith, who was sat cross-legged on the grass, with weapons held out in front of them pointed at Smith. Smith's attorney, Andres Cano, told DailyMail.com: 'He's waiting for his wife to come get him and he sees this [guy] running across with a gun pointed at him, yelling shrieking, shouting.' 'Within ten seconds, another one rolls...

Federal authorities won't explain why three men who participated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, have mysteriously disappeared from the FBI's Capitol Violence Most Wanted list. One unidentified man wore an earpiece during the riot and was filmed carrying what appeared to be a concealed handgun on his left hip. The man was pictured on the FBI's most wanted list for over five months until he was removed without explanation on the same day the New York Times reported an FBI informant was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. A second unidentified man was filmed beating police officers...